Biarritz Surf Gang

THE TRUE STORY OF THE GRANDE PLAGE GANG

In the South-South-West of France lived a gang.

A gang of pals, the best surfers in Europe.

This story

is the hidden face of French surfing.

The story of Biarritz' Grande Plage gang.

They were the group of surfers.

There was no competition, they were the only group.

In the 1980s, they were unbeatable, untouchable.

French surfing reached its place

thanks to this gang of lunatics!

At the time, Biarritz was far less touristic.

Because ETA

blew up a few bombs every now and then.

In the Mitterrand years,

the fashion was to show off, money...

We didn't give a shit

about all of that.

What we liked was to surf.

But what we preferred

was to fuck things up

everywhere we went.

My friends were...

We knew we lived like no one else

in France.

La Grande Plage was 60 guys

on the wall over there.

We felt different,

we over-exaggerated

to provoke even more.

Surfing was very punk here.

And the boss was Sammy.

We partied hard.

It wasn't "no future",

but "loads of futures".

We had no taboos,

we didn't care about the others.

We did it all together. Good things,

and some less good.

We lived surf, drank surf,

shat surf.

That's all we thought about.

And this is me.

My nickname is le Nabo.

We went very far together.

Very far out.

Some of us shone,

and some never came back.

KIKETTE 11 years old, 1978

Kikette appeared suddenly.

He was 10, he'd stand further away by the wall.

He watched us. We saw the kid was interested in surfing.

He wanted to be there.

Everyone liked him,

he was a star. At the time,

there were no little ones surfing.

He was so hooked, he was really into the wall,

in the atmosphere...

He soon became the best competitor.

It was almost an honour to let a La Grande guy nick your wave.

The atmosphere at La Grande was really great at the time.

At competitions, there was always this gang

from La Grande Plage.

We hadn't planned

on doing competitions, but we realized

we could make results and have fun.

We had fun! When I started surfing, I didn't know

competitions existed,

nor French Championships.

We were the pioneers of the new trend: long hair,

wankers.

We competed

but before that,

we were real wankers.

It was easier to tell the guys,

"Go get some rosé wine"

rather than go stretch on the beach.

Those who stretched on the beach

got kicked in the backside.

We used to go to competitions...

We would party!

We got smashed.

We'd do the contest and win.

One of us always won.

In competitions,

others went to bed at 8 and we'd go at 3 AM.

At 7 AM, we were in the water and won.

The more wasted we were, the funnier it was.

We won.

Some guys were a bit gutted.

A lot of the others weren't like us,

they were serious

and tried to

win but couldn't.

Or not often.

Or never.

Eric Graciet!

Eric Graciet: "Full throttle"

We won all the titles, La Grande Plage

was French Champion.

Graciet, first leader

Handsome and friendly surfers

We enjoyed being the best.

La Grande: French Champion The rest: jokers.

Everyone has his wetsuit on,

including the only lady of the team

Cathy Monge.

These moments are so intense.

French surf champion

You forget all the efforts to go past the waves.

At the time, La Grande

pulled surfing upwards.

We'd revolutionized things by doing 360s all the time.

During a competition,

when we did 360s, they didn't know how to mark us.

The judges didn't know about surfing.

We wondered who judged us.

There were generations of judges

who'd never been on a board.

Our surfing wasn't traditional.

The judges were lost and that annoyed us.

They knew nothing. How could they talk about surfing?

Most of them had never stepped on a board.

A federation wants champions,

not nice guys.

Unfortunately for them, La Grande Plage had the best.

Sammy was the first to be French Champion in 1980.

We thought, "Why not us?"

We went to the French championship in Lacanau.

We started to compete, it went well.

I was qualified with Michel to go straight to finals.

La Mouche and Eric had a second chance.

We were sure all four La Grande guys would be in the final at Lacanau.

There weren't enough waves. They stopped the competition.

We went to see the organizers at the federation,

and asked, "When will it be?" "Not right now."

Due to a lack of waves today,

the judges decided to postpone the competition to tomorrow 8 AM.

No worries, we'll go home to Biarritz.

Don't worry.

We didn't like the vibe at Lacanau, so we went back to Biarritz.

We partied at La Canasta, got smashed and went back

in the morning, 200 km.

We'd ran out of gas, so we went to a gas station at Lacanau.

We just wanted gas. I don't know.

The guy let his dog loose, it bit Michel.

It bit my leg.

Misunderstanding, a fight started.

I got rid of the dog.

The attendant punched me in the face.

We get hit, we run off and get to the competition.

They'd done the second chance the day before.

To be sure there wouldn't be four of us in the finals.

The final had started 10 minutes ago.

We went in and had 10 minutes of series with Michel.

I finished third. It was a huge scam.

We were not happy about that. But they paid for it.

Shit went down.

We smashed everything.

Chairs were thrown through windows.

Someone came to warn us

that the boss of a restaurant

was looking for the Biarritz guys

with a rifle.

They had to get out of there

because the guy was mad

and could shoot them.

I saw these guys who surfed really well.

They'd come from Australia,

California.

We didn't like too many people in the water,

and they stole our chicks.

We hated the Australians

who lived in Biarritz.

Things often got heated.

Sammy trained us and installed

the rebel mentality.

Sammy was

the leader. At the time,

he surfed the best.

He could ride tubes.

He'd been to Hawaii.

He knew how it was done.

The vibe.

We were newbies.

We hadn't travelled, we were young.

In 1976, I went to Australia.

I was on my own. In Burleigh,

no one shared the waves.

When he came back to France,

and realized

the Australians stole the French waves...

He showed them what he was made of.

SAMMY Australia, 1979

In Hawaii,

you watch your step.

You don't take all the waves.

We were really tame here. The Australians walked all over us.

They had surfed for longer than us.

All we talked about were the travels,